Sorrow in the Land of Smiles

Travel Stories: On the streets of Bangkok Jim Benning faces a confounding reaction to the terrorist attack on America

09.27.01 | 1:00 AM ET

thailand

When I mentioned the terrorist attack on New York and Washington to a waiter in Bangkok the other day, wondering what he thought, his eyes brightened.

“Yes,” he said in a thick accent. “Plane crash. Kaboom. Many die.”

Then he broke into laughter. Just like that. He grinned, tilted his head back and chuckled. When he noticed that I wasn’t laughing with him, he stopped suddenly and hurried away.

He hasn’t been the only one to respond with apparent good cheer. A hotel clerk enjoyed a good chuckle at the mention of the terrorist killings. So did a taxi driver.

“They don’t mean to be disrespectful,” a local British ex-pat explained. “It’s just nervous laughter. That’s just the way some Thais express apprehension.”

I understand this intellectually. Maintaining surface harmony is essential in Thai culture, as it is throughout much of Asia. Thailand, in fact, is often called the “land of smiles,” and Thais take this very seriously. But emotionally, I’ve had a hard time coping. Seeing these guys laugh, I simply wanted to slug them.

Travelers can be tough to please. We come to a place like Thailand seeking the exotic. Yet when we really find it—something very different from what we had expected, something that makes us completely uncomfortable—we struggle.

We want our exotica in sweet, easy-to-digest bites. Funny looking monks? Great. Ornate Buddhist temples? Okay. Weird pink coconut candy? Perfect.

But laughter when it’s time to cry? That’s too much.

Since the attack, I have found myself looking for glimmers of recognition from locals, a sense that they, too, share my outrage, and that underneath all the surface differences, we all really want peace.

A couple of days ago, Leslie and I wandered to Sanam Luang, a giant, oval-shaped park in the middle of Bangkok flanked on one side by gleaming Buddhist temples. There on the grass, to our surprise, thousands of yellow-robed monks and everyday Bangkok citizens gathered to chant and meditate. The event had been organized in response to the attack. “Buddhists Chanting for Peace,” a banner declared.

Candles flickered on a makeshift altar. TV news cameramen jogged about. A police motorcade pulled up and an elderly monk, a statesman of sorts, emerged from the back of a monk-robe-yellow Mercedes sedan to eager photographers.

We planted ourselves on the grass in solidarity. Speeches were made that we couldn’t understand. Chants were chanted. We sat silently, Leslie and I and thousands of others, for ten minutes of meditation. Restless Bangkok, it seemed on this small sliver of grass, had finally, for a few precious minutes, grown quiet.

Afterward, several participants approached us.

“Where you from?” asked a cherubic-faced, twenty-something monk, his freshly shaved pate gleaming in the sun.

“America.”

He frowned. “Oh, I sorry,” he said. “Horrible, horrible. We very sad. Want peace.”

“Thank you,” I said. “We want peace, too. Very much.”

He clasped his hands together, prayer-like, and bowed. I returned the gesture. Others, including a doctor and a basket weaver, also offered condolences.

“Very terrible,” a woman wearing a globe pin muttered, shaking her head.

Maybe if the waiter and hotel clerk and taxi driver hadn’t been caught off guard, they would have responded similarly.

Either way, the gathering in Sanam Luang, and the outpouring of support that followed, warmed my heart. Amid all the cryptic smiles, perplexing conversations and puzzling laughter here in Thailand, these were the kind of responses I could understand.



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